


Charcoal

by iluvaqt



Series: Avengers ABCs [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Artists, Drawing, F/M, Seaside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 05:21:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4509393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iluvaqt/pseuds/iluvaqt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve likes to draw, but since he's thawed, he hasn't been able to draw anything. Until he saw her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charcoal

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by Alexabout, who asked for artistic Steve.

It was like stepping into someone else's world. Someone else's life. More than seventy years gone in a blink. Changes in laws and politics, advancements in industry, subjective progression and improvement of society he had once been a part of, fought to preserve. While some things were familiar, too much was foreign. He felt lost and cast adrift in a place he didn't belong. He didn't know anyone. Well no one who he had known pre-deep freeze that could help him adjust.

Peggy forgot him after five minutes on a good day. On a bad day, she spent his entire visit incoherent and distressed. 

Just filling his grocery list for a week was a headache and an exercise in rationality. He kept having to remind himself with every item he added to his cart that he could afford to buy it. Even though something as simple and necessary as a shaving bar of soap cost more than what he’d once earned for entire day’s work. 

Director Fury set him up with an apartment and a wage but he wasn't a leech and he was used to earning his way. He was eager to work but he wasn't any good to anyone. He didn't know current laws and policy, technology might as well be alien, even social norms left him gobsmacked and more than a little embarrassed. So until someone decided he was ready or there was a mission he was suitable for, he was at a loose end.

So he spent his days split between going through old microfilm catching up on history and reading books, or working out to get his body back into peak physical condition. It was only due to Dr. Erskine’s serum that he wasn't stumbling around like a toddler, muscles atrophied with bone density like chalk.

Escaping inner city noise and bustle would have to be his favorite part of his new life.

On weekends when library hours were busier with students and researchers, he got on his bike and rode down out to Gravesend Bay and spent daylight hours just watching time tick over. Picnicking under an elm tree and sketching in his notepad.

He had a pocket book for listing cultural reference research and his scrapbook for sketching. Drawing had once been an escapism. Something to channel his dreams and frustrations into, since physical exertion only left him weak and more susceptible to illness. Back then he had saved most of his energy trying to make sure that when those local bullies next caught up to him, he had enough stamina to pick himself up and get home.

Charcoal was his tool of choice since it was cheap and didn’t react with his airways. As a child he couldn’t get within a few feet of gasoline, turpentine or metho without struggling to breathe. When he was low on erasers, stale bread sufficed. One pitfall of his favorite hobby was he didn’t always remember his hands were dirty. Bucky had pressed a handkerchief into his hands more than once to get him to clean his face, after he found Steve with smudges on his cheeks or forehead. His chest tightened as he thought of Bucky. Another life - another dear friend, more than his partner, closer to a brother - lost to him. That first weekend he headed out to Coney Island he hadn't drawn a single thing. His hand poised over paper, charcoal between his fingers with absolutely nothing coming to mind. 

Still, he returned to that same spot a week later. He had enjoyed its somewhat uninterrupted tranquillity.

That was when he saw her.

Dressed in shorts that were bordering on indecent with how high they were cut, shapely legs that seemed to stretch on longer than he'd ever seen any woman's legs go and calves that could cut diamonds. Practical lace up work boots encased her feet and her shirt which covered a fitting body top only just shielded her stomach from exposure by a tied knot of shirt tails over her midriff.

Tendrils of her thick brown hair spilled out from her ponytail and kept getting in her face with strong ocean breeze helping to free more locks as seconds passed.

She carried a black satchel across her back and white case that looked like a fishing tackle box, but she couldn't be fishing since she had no rod or spool.

His curiosity was answered when he saw her don gloves from her toolkit and kneel down to gather water samples.

As she pushed back her Jacki-O style sunglasses, she revealed more of her face and his heart twinged in his chest at her full thick lashes that framed intelligent brown eyes. Completely engrossed in her work, she didn't notice him or his observation and he shifted as his body stirred when she bit down innocently on her brightly painted red lips. Her brow furrowed in thought, she added something to her vial and waited patiently for whatever reaction that added compound would give.

Without prompting or even conscious thought, his hand began to skim across paper, lines and shading spilling across what was one blank medium.

He watched her, taking in her oval-shaped face, high cheekbones and warm sun-kissed hue of her skin. 

Her nose and cheeks were dotted with freckles that spoke of her time outdoors and fine lines on her forehead told him she spent too much of her days frowning. He found himself wondering what she worried about while he drew her.

She was packing up her kit and stood to dust her knees while he was racing to finish her outline. As she turned away and slipped her glasses back over her eyes making to leave down that long jetty, he paused to watch her. He would fill in detail later with perfect recall and he wanted to study his muse a while longer. Drawing calmed him. Yet he had been unable to produced anything since he'd woken, until now.

She skipped and hopped, dodging gaps from decaying and missing beams, and it seemed like she was swaying to an inaudible song. Perhaps she was listening to some melody in her mind, because a beautiful smile graced her face.

Steve watched until she became only a small barely discernible figure a great distance away.

His remaining afternoon was spent lost in thought, capturing every remembered detail he'd observed of his mystery woman with hair of darkest mahogany and lips as red as a Matadors' cape. 

He felt his heat climb under his skin and spread from his neck to his face as he thought about her smooth, unblemished legs. They were screen siren worthy legs. Hedy Lamarr had nothing on this dame.

As sunlight faded, he glanced over at his work scattered around and at his charcoal stained fingers. There were so many drawings. He'd emptied more than half of his notebook for pages to draw on. He'd drawn her hands, her profile, her face, one sheet had just her eyes and he realized that even from a distance he'd captured a lot of character in her eyes. There was a quiet longing about them, something was missing from her soul. His father had always said you could tell a man's soul by his eyes. He'd chosen to marry his mother from her eyes. He met her, they had two dates and he'd proposed. Being drafted to war, his father didn't want to waste time. His father died while serving. He was seven. If he had to say just one thing about those eyes that he'd captured, they were kind eyes.

He might never see her again. He didn't even know her name. Although he had a fair idea of how to go about looking for her if he wanted to, but he figured he wouldn't. He was grateful to his mystery gal for one very important gift. She had given him inspiration. She had played his muse and perhaps if he kept her a mystery, she would continue to help him reclaim his treasured past-time. Charcoal dirtied fingers and all.

 


End file.
